Today is the day the rest of the world will learn what a great mother you have been for the last 39 years.

Your daughter, Erica Anderson Campbell, and I have been plotting for a couple of months now on how to make this Mother's Day your best one ever.

We start by publicly thanking you for all you do for Erica and her husband, Douglas, and their son, Matthew, 3, and for everything else you've done forever and ever as Erica's mom, adviser, conscience and confidante.

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So how did you get your name and picture in the New Haven Register?

Things started in February when, in preparation of Women's History Month coverage, we asked the public to provide us with nominees for the 2012 Women's History Month theme, Empowerment and Education. Erica typed up a lovely nomination for you, but I thought it was better suited for a Mother's Day tribute, which brings us to today.

Your story, Carol, is one that many can relate to, I'm sure. You were the only child of first-generation Italian immigrants, who grew up in New Haven and whose life has been one of tragedy and triumph.

Your parents worked very hard for the little they had. You took over the cooking and cleaning when you were 10 because your mother became very sick. Your father couldn't send you to college, but you worked in a factory, earning $52.50 a week, $10 of which went to your ailing mother. You walked to Southern Connecticut State University, your only higher-education option, since you couldn't afford a car.

Then, your mother died suddenly during your freshman year, and again, the cooking and cleaning became your responsibility, in addition to your schooling.

You persevered, and after graduation were hired as a fifth-grade teacher by the Orange Board of Education.

Your mother's light shone upon you the day that you went on a class field trip to Sturbridge Village, and met the bus driver, who became your husband. Erica came in 1972, two years after you married Gil Anderson.

When Gil got laid off, you went back to work when Erica was 6. Things were hard, but you kept on going.

You were always dead tired, but still helped Erica with her homework, and going to her softball games, and cooking and cleaning.

You put up with Erica's rebellious streak, and ignored her nasty back talk. Of course, you now know that Erica regrets those words, and that she feels that no amount of apologizing can ever take it back. Even today, when looking back, she is amazed at your strength.

That's one of the reasons, she tells me, that she loves you. Besides your strength, she loves you for "loving me, no matter what I did, and for being a mom. Having the strength to just be a mom and not being afraid to be a parent."

When Gil passed away suddenly when Erica was a college freshman, she doesn't know how you stayed in the house alone for four years. Even how you put Erica back in the car and sent her back to college right after the funeral.

Today, Erica is grateful for everything you have ever done for her. For the shoulder to cry on when she didn't get the job she wanted, and for celebrating with her when she did.

She and Douglas today are so very thankful that you decided to retire after 37 years so you could watch Matthew each day while they went to work, Douglas in the IT business and Erica, a fifth-grade teacher at Peck Place School in Orange.

It seems the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree.

"She comes to my house every day at 6:45 a.m., and doesn't leave until 5:30 at night," Erica noted.

Erica calls you each night to say good night. She says you lift her up and make her laugh. You support her in ways she doesn't realize.

"She's an amazing woman; she really is. She deserves more than I can ever give her," Erica told me.

Some day, Erica would like to make your dream of going to Italy a reality.

Until then, saying "I love you" will have to suffice, she said.

Erica says you never ask for anything in return.

"I want to find a way to let the world know how special she is," Erica said.